Online Sales Psychology That Works

Written by David Gikandi

Continued from page 1

Needs satisfaction Whenever people buy something, they do it to get some need fulfilled. Simple. Even if you go out to buy a boomerang, principle is same. There is a need you wish to fulfill, such as exercise, amusement, discovery, fun.

Examine your products and services and forget all hype that you enjoy about your product. Forget way you love that super-cool feature you built in. Just think on needs level and find out what needs a buyer wants to fulfill. Needs are not features. Needs are things like saving time, spending time with family, knowing something, and achieving success. That is what you will be selling all along. You only mention features as a side item to seal decision logically, but decision to buy will be based on emotions, needs.

Small agreements lead to bigger ones If someone came up to you and asked you for your agreement on some major issue, they are more likely to get a no from you than if they came up to you and led you on with a series of much smaller issues that you can easily agree on, building up to major issue. Getting people to agree to a major issue is a lot easier if you first give them related but smaller issues that they can automatically agree to.

One way to use this in your business is to provide a free trial. It is easy to get someone to try something free. After that, it is much easier to get them to upgrade to a retail version. Another thing you could do is to ask questions spaced out within your sales pitch and those questions are type that have a yes answer. They must be questions related to product or service. They must be they kind of questions that almost always have a yes answer. That build up of several related but easy yes answers make it much easier to get final yes to buy.

Putting it all together Well, there you have it. Now go back to your web site and re-examine everything about it. If you find that it really is very far off from what we have talked about, then you might want to re-build all of it. Whatever you do, make sure that you fully grasp what we have talked about here and apply it in full to your site. You cannot go about applying these selectively. That will only work half magic. For example, a lot of webmasters are lazy or reluctant to offer free content and tools. Well, you must because most of these tactics depend on it. If you would like an example of how to apply this knowledge, have a look at www.positionweaver.com. Without useful free content that induces return visits, it is going to be very hard to effectively apply these principles. Like we said in beginning, people run on a common psychological framework, rules that you can live and succeed by.

David Gikandi (support@positionweaver.com) is CEO at SearchPositioning.com (http://www.positionweaver.com).

These are webpages you create with a specific search engine's algorithms in mind. Essentially, it's a webpage optimized for a particular search engine (configured to meet search engine's criteria for keyword density, title, description etc.) and submitted to that search engine only. The webpage includes a link to your site.

What happens is that doorway page, because it can be easily optimized to be attractive to specific search engines, ranks well and therefore websurfer selects it from search engine results. The doorway page is called up but immediately diverts surfer to your main site.

Be aware, though, that search engines are aware of this practice and some are penalizing for it.

I recommend you bookmark Search Engine Watch to stay abreast of this issue and also to stay current with various search engines' general preferences which seem to change on a daily basis: http://www.searchenginewatch.com .

=> Ezine Advertising/Ad Swaps

Your promotional strategy should also include paid advertising in ezines. If you also publish your own ezine, don't forget to do some ad swapping with other ezine publishers.

For a directory of ezines that accept advertising, check out: The Directory of Ezines - http://www.lifestylespub.com The Free Directory of Ezines - http://www.netmastersolutions.com

=> Free Classifieds and FFA Links

Opinion is divided on how effective placing ads at free classified sites really is. Personally, I've found that it's not worth effort, particularly when you consider that by submitting to these sites you become an immediate target for spam. But, others claim to have success with it, so by all means, give it a go.

Submitting your site to FFA (Free For All) sites won't do much for you in direct terms. The reason to submit to these sites is that they boost number of sites search engines record as "linking" to yours and this can boost your ranking with some engines. Be prepared for a DELUGE of mail back from these sites. You'll need to set up email filters to handle it.

=> Invite Referrals

Give your site visitors and ezine subscribers a way to recommend your site and ezine to others. Recommend It is worth signing up for: http://www.recommend-it.com .

=> Fresh Content

Update your website content frequently to give visitors something to come back for. Invite site visitors to leave you their email address so you can notify them when your site changes.

=> Keyword Bidding

GoTo.com is one of a new breed of search engines that allows you to bid on key words to improve your ranking. At present, this is a ridiculously cheap way of ensuring a good ranking so it's worth thinking about. Some keywords can be had for as little as $0.01 per visitor. This means you pay GoTo.com one cent for every visitor they send you: http://www.goto.com .

=> Reciprocal Links

Contact webmasters of complementary but not competitive sites and ask if they will swap links with you.

=> Discussion Boards, Newsgroups and Mailing Lists

Constructively participate in discussion boards, newsgroups and mailing lists relevant to subject matter of your site. Include a link to your site and/or ezine in your sig file.

=> Joint Ventures

Enter into joint ventures with other websites and/or ezines. This could be as simple as cross-promoting each others' ezines on your "Thank You For Subscribing" page or something grander such as getting together to promote a new product or service you have both developed for purpose.

=> Press Releases

There are several good press release services available. Here's just two:

See what I mean about your work just starting? Hopefully you can also see why everyone keeps telling you that you need to spend 80% of your time on marketing!

Running a business online is no different to running a business offline when it comes to marketing and promotion. Both require planning, diligence and application, day in, day out.

That's where real work of running an online business comes in. It's not website -- that's necessary but not sufficient. It's your website coupled with hours of work promoting it that makes your business a success.

One without other will relegate you to scrapheap of wannabes - all 95% of them. Don't let yourself be one of 95% who never make it. By getting foundation (your website) right and then constantly and effectively promoting it using all of methods outlined in this article (as well as your own brilliant ideas, of course) you stand a very good chance of securing your place among 5% of online businesses that actually do make it.

Elena Fawkner is editor of the award-winning A Home-Based Business Online ... practical home business ideas, resources and strategies for the work-from-home entrepreneur. Subscribe at http://www.fawkner.com/subscribe.html